Category Archives: Other Big Objects

 On Saturday right after we arrived Julia and Dan took us down to the LA City Market.  What an interesting place.  Lots of ethnic food types, almost any type of pepper you could want.  It was a veritable treasure of sights, sounds and smells.  If you have time this is a stop you must take in LA.

LA City Market

The Indianapolis Home Show has been the site of my first Big Thing photos of the year. This year yielded a couple. Here is a Big Smartphone located in the Comcast booth right at the west entrance. Chris was kind enough to let us take this photo. If you look closely at the screen on the phone you can just make out the Chief Photographer in the lower left.

Home Show

This is a new one. This granite company exhibits every year showing a wide variety of large granite slabs. It’s always interesting to see the many different types of granite on display. This year to draw attention to their booth they displayed this big granite vase. I don’t know how they did this, must have used the largest granite lathe ever made. Quite impressive work.

Home Show Vase

We visited the Indiana Historical Museum for one of their special exhibits.  Since I’m entering this post at a later date I don’t remember exactly which exhibit it was.  They did have one that dealt with polio, the vaccines, and treatments. At any rate we did see this Big Watch.

Indiana Historical Museum

Here is a Big Crayon and Big Pencil. We were on our way to a log cabin in Brown County, Indiana after hiking in McCormick’s State Park. As we were driving the Chief Photographer spotted these big items and shouted “Stop, turn around, there were some Big Crayons back there.” Sure enough, out in front of the Edgewood Early Childhood Center on SR-46 in Ellettsville, IN were these babies. May be the first Big Crayon on the site, I already had a Big Pencil that Andy once gave me, see below.

Big Writing Instruments

The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis where I volunteer once a week had a Volunteer Recognition evening coinciding with the opening of “Avatar: The Exhibition.” We were able to experience the new exhibit and found these Big Boots to illustrate the difference in size between humans and Avatars. The lower gravity allowed everything to grow to a larger size. If you plan to visit Indianapolis, plan to spend some time in the museum. On a Wednesday morning stop in at Science Works on the 4th floor and say “hi” to me.

Children’s Museum Avatar

After getting the Coke bottle and Big Rocker in Hagerstown we traveled north on I-81 to the Keystone Fireworks Company in Pennsylvania, just over the Mason-Dixon line. This is one big firecracker. There were a lot of no smoking signs around the building as you might expect. They weren’t open at but this was one big store.

Mason-Dixon Firecracker

Sullivan’s Hardware, on Keystone Avenue in Indianapolis, is fast becoming my inflatable site of preference. They regularly have suppliers place inflatables in front of the store. Driving by recently I spotted this big inflatable before the Chief Photographer. She asked why we were turning into the parking lot, then she spotted this Big Green Egg Cooker inflatable. This ceramic cooker is the latest trend in grilling. The company calls it “The Ultimate Cooking Experience.” I bet it’s a pretty good grill.

Sullivan’s Egg

To prove the point that you never know where you will find a “Big Thing” this is one example. We were at the Indianapolis Home Show and found this Big Water Faucet at the Culligan booth. We spoke with Kim and she allowed us to grab this image of the self supporting faucet.

Home Show Culligan Booth

I volunteer at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis one morning a week. It’s the worlds largest Children’s Museum, so it’s only fitting that I work there. Recently the Chief Photographer had a day off and spent some time exploring the museum. Some images are on the Seasonal page, these are a couple of other Big Objects. In the atrium stands the Bumblebee, a transformer type guy that all the visitors love, I work in the Science Works area. One area there is the Health House and this guy on the right invites children to exercise everyday. On the floor in front of him is a twister type game for the children to play.

CMI Bumblebee

Health House Guy

One of the interesting things about being married to an historian is that you make stops that normal people don’t. In this case, we were on our way to a week at the Maryland shore before attending Matt’s wedding in Baltimore. Interstates I-70 and I-68 follow much of the old National Road (now US-40 for the most part.) Anyway, we were about to pass through Cumberland, Maryland where the eastern end of the National Road originated at the Potomac River. Since we stopped previously in Vandalia, Indiana where the Road terminated we had to stop to see the beginning point. Traveling into Cumberland on US-40 we spotted this Big Ear, outside the “All About Hearing” shop. We circled back, got the shot and had a nice chat with the proprietors of the shop. (BTW, the National Road was the first major road to use the new macadam road surface.)

All About Hearing

We were in Muncie, Indiana on a nice June Saturday to attend my niece Caitlin’s wedding. We got there early and were on our way to meet my sister, Catherine and Dale her husband at Oakurst Gardens, a very relaxing park in Muncie. Traveling down N. Wheeling Ave we spotted this Big T-shirt promoting the Outfitter Screen Printing and Embroidery shop. Catherine had to wait.

Muncie T-shirt

Sometimes it’s funny how you find Big Things. As we were on our way for a Spring Break trip to Gatlinburg, Tennessee we stopped to get a photo of a patriotic chicken on Exit 141 at I-75 in Tennessee (see Big Animals page.) Once we were back on the interstate going South we immediately spotted this Big Cross. Figuring to get it on the way back we continued on. Four days later traveling back home I was surprised to remember this cross. Nice looking but neglected. It stands on Old Kentucky Road about 0.4 miles south of the exit next to the defunct Royal Blue RV Park.

Tennessee Cross

Sometimes getting photos of Big Things can be stressful and this is a case in point, not that you would know. This Rubiks Cube is located in a lobby area of the Holiday Inn Select in Knoxville, Tennessee. Getting there was quite an adventure. Once we arrived we spoke with Richard, who worked for the hotel. He escorted us to this object. A nice man who represented the hotel with pride, thanks Richard.

Knoxville Big Rubik’s Cube

Surprisingly, this is the only Big Object we spotted in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. There were many more “Animals” and “Food and Drink” big things. On our way out early Friday Deb spotted this Big Boot. I slammed on the brakes and pulled in to get this photo. This is on the porch of the Boot Factory Outlet on Rt. 441, everything in Pigeon Forge is an outlet. The Boot Factory wasn’t open at the time, too bad I may have purchased my first pair of boots here, with a couple free to “boot.”

Pigeon Forge Boot Factory

Wandering through the stores in downtown Gatlinburg, Tennessee, which is like Ocean City, NJ only with the shops on both sides of a street rather than a beach on one side of a boardwalk and shops on the other. A lot of duplicate shops, (how many henna tattoo shops can stay in business?) There was an interesting little mall of quality shops and in the midst of this was this basket full of eggs. We had to stay a while to get this photo since it was popular with the children.

Basket of Eggs

Another planned photo from Roadside America located in Asheville, NC. We left the Biltmore Estate at mid-afternoon and we were hungry. Food costs at the Biltmore were in the style of the house, a personal pizza was $18 to give you an example, yikes. Fortunately, while tracking this Big Iron in downtown Asheville we found the Early Girl Eatery. Here’s a note from their website: “Early Girl Eatery opened its doors in mid October of 2001. Centrally located in downtown Asheville on historic Wall Street, the critically-acclaimed and locally beloved eatery offers delicious southern food in a casual, charming atmosphere.” While traveling we are always in search of local, non-chain restaurants and Early Girl didn’t let us down. Highly recommended.

Early Girl Iron

On our way down to the Smokies we decided to stop for lunch in Berea, illness Kentucky, a nice college town and also the home of the Boone Tavern. Since Deb is a history teacher, the Boone Tavern sounded like a good place to eat. We drove through campus and into downtown and found the Boone Tavern. The Tavern turned out to be a little upscale for what we anticipated. White tablecloths, etc. Anyway we left and on the way to the car spotted the Main Street Cafe, a few doors down. This is a good local restaurant, The lunch menu offered a great choice of classic american food with enough trendy choices for the local college diners. Stop in if you are in the area Oh! I almost forgot, this big hand is next door in front of the Berea Arts Council.

Berea Hand